• Evidence for ideology
  • Image and text - "Propaganda in the pocket"
  • Contemporary "documents"
  • Over-striking
• Evidence fot the economy
  • Metal composition & Weight (debasement)
  • Sources (mining; re-minting; liquidating treasuries)
  • Exchange rates
  • Distribution (location & quantity); trade
• Evidence for technology
  • Mass-manufacturing

Electrum (gold-silver alloy) coin, late 7th - early 6th century BC

(Top) 5th century BC; (bottom) 2nd century BC

Overstriking can tell us the relative chronology of coin issues (and thus rulers, states, etc)

• First to use multiple metals (typically bronze, silver, gold)
  • Coins had nominal values, but real-world rates could fluctuate dramatically
• Lots of change over time, but three major systems, distinct in organizational logic, form, and use
  • Republic & early empire: bronze as, silver denarius, gold aureus (rare)
  • Late Antiquity & early middle ages: bronze nummus and follis, silver hexagram and miliaresion, gold solidus
  • High and late middle ages: bronze trachy, silver stavraton, electrum/gold hyperpyron

Emperor Justinian I, minted in Constantinople, 539 AD.

(top left) early gold coin of Caliph 'Abd al-Malik (680s AD); (top right) new solidus of Justinian II (c. 695); (bottom left) later gold coin of Caliph 'Abd al-Malik (697 AD); (bottom right) silver miliarision of Constantine IV & Leo III (730s AD)

• Louis the Pious (820s AD). Obverse: + HLVDOVVICVS IMP; Reverse: + XPISTIANA RELIGIO.
• Nominally 240 to a pound
• High middle ages: sterling silver (92.5% silver by weight)
• Origin of the British Pound

• Gold Venetian ducato, used 1284-1796.
• Widely copied across Medieterranean and Europe.
• (top) ducat of Giovanni Gradenigo, 1355-1356. (bottom) ducat of Doge Paolo Renier, 1779-1789.

• "Pillar type" dollar, minted in Mexico, Lima and Santo Domingo, 1536-1572.
• Silver dollar = 8 reals (pieces of eight). Escudo = 2 dollars. Dubloon = 2 escudos.

• Emerged around AD 1000 under the early Song Dynasty, China, eventually made its way west

The coinage of this paper-money is authenticated with as much form and ceremony as if it were actually of pure gold or silver. To each note, a numbher of officers, specially apointed, not only subscribe their nemes, but affix their signets also […] by which it receives full authenticity as current money, and the act of counterfiting it is punished as a capital offence. […] This paper-currency is circulated in very part of his majesty's domains, nor dares any person, at the peril of his life, refuse to accept it in payment. All his subjects receive it without hesitation, because, wherever their business may call then, they can dispose of it again in the purchase of merchandise they may have occasion for. […] With it, in short, every article may be procured.

Marco Polo, Travels, translated by William Marsden

• US introduced decimal currency in 1792; UK in 1971
• WWI (1914-18) saw unprecedented national borrowing
  • This further loosened the relationship between currency and precious metal values
  • Hyperinflation: Weimar mark 1921-24
  • Bretton Woods agreement (1944-71) established fixed exchange rates between gold and major currencies
  • Since 1971, currencies "free float"
• Euro introduced 1999-2002, legal tender in 19 of the 28 EU countries
• Plastic money replacing "paper": Australia (1998); UK (2016)

• P. Grierson, Byzantine Coinage. (1999). [nice short introduction, PDF easily found online]
• P. Grierson, Coins of Medieval Europe. (1991).
• W.E. Metcalf, The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman coinage. (2012).
• M.E. Snodgrass, Coins and Currency: An Historical Encyclopedia. (2007).
• Wildwinds, http://www.wildwinds.com (accessed September 2017). [a massive repository of images for ancient, medieval and English currencies]

A lot, according to Monty Python in the Life of Brian (1979)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7tvauOJMHo

• Governing an empire
  • The new constitional order
  • The empire's "natural boarders"?
  • The 3rd Century Crisis
  • Aurelian and Diocletian
• Uniting an empire: citizenship
• Uniting an empire: religion

• After defeating Antony and Cleopatra, in 27 BC Octavian set about "restoring" the republic
  • Avoided using overt authoritarian methods
  • Honored as Augustus, "the revered", by the Senate, the name he was known by thereafter
  • Took the title princeps, "first citizen"
  • Became imperator, "commander" with authority over all the provinces (everything outside Italy)
• In 23, after holding the consulship for 10 years, he gave that position up permanently
  • Instead relied on consular and tribunical powers without monpolizing the offices
• The Romans did not make a distinction between "republic" and "empire". They always called the state the "republic"

Instead of issuing a decree or acclaiming him with shouts [the senate] chose Valerius Messala to speak for them all when Augustus entered the House. Messala's words were: "Caesar Augustus, I am instructed to wish you and your family good fortune and divine blessings; which amounts to wishing that our entire city will be fortunate and our country prosperous. The Senate agree with the People of Rome in saluting you as the Father of your country." With tears in his eyes, Augustus answered - again I quote his exact words: "Fathers of the Senate, I have at last achieved my highest ambitions. What more can I ask of the immortal gods than that they may permit me to enjoy your approval until my dying day."

Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, 58, tr. Graves

• Military conquests
• Political stability
  • Only political authority to ever fully unite the Mediterranean
  • Long institutional continuity (509 BC - 1453 AD)
  • Universal citizenship (constitutio antoniniana, AD 212)
  • Language of power
• Cultural output
  • Golden (70 BC - 18 AD) and Silver Age (18-133 AD) Latin Literature
  • Second Sophistic (circa 60 - 230 AD) Philosophy
  • Monumental civic architechture across the Mediterranean

Now all the Greek cities rise up under your leadership, and the monuments which are dedicated in them and all their establishments and comforts redound to your honor like beautiful suburbs. The coasts and interiors have been filled with cities, some newly founded, others increased under and by you. … As on holiday, the whole civilized world lays down the arms which were its ancient burden, and has turned to adornment and all glad thoughts - with power to realize them. All the other rivalries have left our cities, and this one contention holds them all, how each city may appear more beautiful and attractive. … Thus it is right to pity only those outside your hegemony - if indeed there are any - because they lose your blessings.

Aelius Aristides (c. 117-181 AD), Orations, 26.94

• Alexander Severus (222-235) murdered, institutes a period of instability
  • "Barracks" emperors
  • From 235-284 there were 26 claimants, 2 secession movements, multiple invasion by Persians and Germanic tribes
• Aurelian (270-5) threw back the invasions and reunited the empire
• Diocletian (284-305)
  • Reformed administrative structures
  • addressed the instability of succession by dividing imperial authority between four colleagues (tetrarchy)
  • divinding responsabilities geographically
  • Persecuted Christians

The Augustaeum (temple to the emperors) in Aphrodisias, Modern Turkey

Consider then whether on your return you will exact obeisance from the Greeks, the freest of men, or will you make an exception for the Greeks but inflict this indignity on the Macedonians? Or will you draw a distinction in the matter of honors generally, receiving from Macedonians and Greeks honors fit for men and acceptable to Greeks, and foreign honors only from non-Greeks? … These and similar words of Callisthenes greatly irritated Alexander, though the Macedonians were pleased to hear them. Alexander realized this and sent instructions to the Macedonians to forget about obeisance for the future.

Adapted from Arrian, Anabasis, 4.11.8-12.1, tr. Austin

"Vae, puto deus fio." ("Oh dear, I think I'm becoming a god")

Attributed to Emperor Vespasian (69-79 AD), Suetonius, Life of Vespasian, 23.4

• Remember the ancient Hebrew Kingdoms?
  • Samaritans descended from northern kingdom of Israel
  • Jews descended from southern kingdom of Judaea
  • Christianity emerged from a reformist movement within Judaism
• Judaism is a religion of law, produced a lont-running struggle over how to reconcile with Hellenistic culture
  • Maccabees revolt (167-160 BC) against Seleucid rule, established independent kingdom
  • Major Jewish intellectual center emerged in Alexandria under the Ptolmeys
  • Philo of Alexandria (20 BC - 50 AD), Hellenized Jewish philosopher

• Jewish Revolt (66-73 AD), first of several major Roman-Jewish wars
  • watershed moment in divergence of Christianity from Judaism
  • Sack of Jerusalem, burning of the second temple in 70
  • Source: Josephus, The Jewish War
• The destruction of the second temple and diaspora of the Jewish people led to Judaism being restructured around synagogues
• After Bar Kokhba Revolt (AD 132-136), Jews were expelled from Jerusalem, which was rebuilt as a Hellenized Roman colony named Aelia Capitolina
• In C2 AD, Hellenistic Judaism declined, possibly because Hellenic Jews became Christians

• Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, was the earliest external source mentioning Jesus and his followers
  • The earliest followers of Jesus were an apocalyptic sect of Jewish reformers
  • After the destruction of the temple in 70, they increasingly became a distinct religion
• Although reconciled with most Hellenized cultural practices, they couldn't reconcile with the imperial cult
  • Highly decentralized organization, produced great variety of heterodox thinkers and beliefs
  • Persecutions were generally sporadic and localized affairs
  • Exception: the empire-wide Diocletianic Persecutions (of Christians and other religious minorities), AD 303-11

• Primary
  • Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars
  • Tacitus, The Histories, Agricola, Germania
  • Josephus, The Jewish War
  • Eusebius of Caesarea, Church History
• Secondary
  • A.M. Ward and F.M. Heichelheim, History of the Roman People. 6th Edition. (2012).
  • A. Watson, Aurelian and the Third Century. (2004).
  • J.H. Lynch, Early Christianity: A Brief History. (2009).